Gears of War 4

Today we're excited to announce that Microsoft Studios has acquired the rights to the “Gears of War” franchise from Epic Games, including rights to all existing and future games, entertainment experiences and merchandise. In addition, we are excited to announce that Black Tusk Studios in Vancouver, BC will take over development of the “Gears of War” franchise and that Rod Fergusson, former Director of Production at Epic Games on the “Gears of War” franchise, will join Microsoft and play a key studio leadership role at Black Tusk on the development of the franchise going forward. We had a chance to chat with Phil Spencer, Head of Microsoft Studios, Hanno Lemke, General Manager of Black Tusk Studios at Microsoft Studios, and Rod Fergusson about the big news.

At this point it's a common sentiment: the world of indie game development is packed with designers who exchanged the high-octane world of AAA gaming for freedom and flexibility, and all sorts of pundits have declared that consoles as we know them won't be around for many more decades. Still, it's fascinating to see this coming from Cliff Bleszinski, the guy who helped create one of last generation's biggest franchises. Is the world of traditional retail AAA games really dying?

"As far as [Gears], at the end of the day, you're shooting ****ing lizard-men in the ****ing face with a ****ing chainsaw gun," he says candidly. "It didn't wind up what I'd hoped; I'd pitched it as 'Band of Brothers with monsters' -- you know Band of Brothers is well-done and emotional, telling the story of the Greatest Generation and what they did in the war. Yet somehow we landed on 'Predator'... the characters being all 'buff and manly', I'd never planned on that."

It looks like the original Gears of War could be remade if the Marcus Fenix collection drops for the Xbox One.
Previously, Phil Spencer was seen teasing fans on Twitter regarding the Gears of War: Marcus Fenix collection in which Gears of War 1, 2 and 3 are going to be released on the Xbox One, similar to the Halo Master Chief Collection.

And now, it seems that Gears of War 1 would be remade or at the very least, remastered, for the Marcus Fenix Collection.
In a report by Cyberland, Microsoft is going to use the Gears of War 1 remake/remaster to learn the development method needed to make a good Gears of War game for the Xbox One, performance and optimization wise. The report notes that Microsoft wants to have consistent 60fps on their "killer app" shooters and that the Gears of War remake/remaster would be a good way of learning how to do it.
This report comes in line with Phil Spencer admitting that the team in charge for making Gears of War is getting good with using the tools needed to make Xbox One games.
As reported by KpopStarz, Phil Spencer implied on a tweet that the team is getting more adept with the Xbox One hardware.
"As happens on any [platform, the] longer teams have w/ [hardware] the better they get at using n better the tools get," he wrote.
The report also mentions that the head of marketing for Xbox Games, Aaron Greenberg, replied to Phil Spencer to concur with his assessment, writing "agree, super impressed with this team. #DreamTeam."

The Gears of War franchise has been absent for quite some time, since the release of Gears of War: Judgement a couple of years ago. There’s definitely some work being done, and details about the future of the series are coming soon. There’s a brand new team at Black Tusk after the acquisition from Epic by Microsoft. Former series producer and director Rod Fergusson was hired to oversee the franchise at the time of the acquisition and now it has been announced that he has officially taken over as head of Black Tusk and the Gears of War franchise as a whole.